Peninsula Enterprise, May 1, 1886
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Infrastructure -- Commercial - MillineriesWomen -- Work - Outside the home
Mrs. Walter J. Hall will occupy her handsome millinery establishment recently completed on Messongo, next Thursday -- at which time she returns from the city with everything neat and attractive in the millinery line. Mr. Hall also opens out on same day a full line of mercantile goods.
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Infrastructure -- Commercial - Groceries
Mr. W. T. Bundick, Onancock has purchased a large "fly wheel freezer" and can now furnish ice-cream, 5 to 20 gallons at city prices -- and he guarantees it to be equal in "taste and quality" to the best the market affords. He keeps also constantly on hand a fine lot of fancy and plain cakes, fresh baker's bread &c., manufactured by him. His enterprise should have the encouragement of the public.
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Fields -- OutbuildingsProfessionals -- BuildersFields -- Livestock - PoultryTourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - FairsTourists and sportsmen -- Other recreation - Fraternal ordersAfrican-Americans -- SocietyInfrastructure -- Commercial - Residential constructionFields -- Crops - White potatoes : Diseases and pestsSea -- Finfish - Catch : TroutSea -- Finfish - Methods : SeineInfrastructure -- Commercial - Commercial constructionInfrastructure -- Commercial - Drugstores
Atlantic.
Contractor Massey has completed an enormous barn for the Industry Down and Quilting Co., on their farm in Wallop's Neck, known as the goose farm.
The colored people had a festival on the 26th inst., at Friendship church. The junior Samaritans also marched around the fair grounds.
Mr. T. G. Nock will soon occupy his new dwelling at this place.
Irish potatoes are up in this section, and potato bugs are destroying them.
Trout are being caught in our waters with seines, and selling at 50 cents per dozen.
Dr. T. T. Taylor is making preparations to build a handsome drug store at this place.
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Moral -- AlcoholFields -- Crops - Other vegetablesTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Hunting : Bird
Keller.
John Barleycorn got the advantage of several gentlemen at Mappsburg station last Saturday, and a general fight was the result. No serious damage was done to the combatants, but the cause of local option was thereby greatly promoted. One or two more fights would make Pungoteague district safe for the dry ticket on the 15th of May.
Fair prices have been realized for asparagus shipped from this section.
A hawk shot recently by Mr. George T. Coleburn, measured from tip to tip 4 feet 8 inches.
Fruit Growers' and Truckers' Association.
Farmers -- Farmers' organizationsTransportation -- Railroad - FreightTransportation -- Railroad - Rates and fares
At a meeting of the Fruit Growers' Association of Accomac county, held at Accomac C. H., on April 26, representatives were present from the various sections of the county, and a long list of members were added to the Association. Matters of vital importance to the fruit growing interests were discussed, and action taken looking to the advancement of this enterprise in our county. A number of influential farmers representing the trucking interests, asked to be represented in the Association, and a resolution was unanimously adopted changing the name of the Association to the Fruit Growers' and Truckers' Association of Accomac county.
Jas. C. Weaver, Dr. O. B. Finney and Capt. E. L. East were appointed a committee to draft a constitution and by-laws.
The committee appointed at the last meeting of the Association made a report in reference to freight rates on berries on the N.Y., P. & N. R.R. The committee were instructed to endeavor to get a guarantee from said railroad Co., to put berries in market on schedule time this season. The Association adjourned to meet at Onancock, on Saturday, May 8th, at 2 o'clock, p.m.
Local Option Election on Chincoteague.
Moral -- AlcoholAfrican-Americans -- Race relations
The struggle that has been going on for four weeks between the friends of prohibition, who organized for the protection of their homes, and friends of the liquor license system, in the defence of the saloons reached its height April 23rd, in a rousing open air meeting held opposite Matthew's hotel in opposition to one held by the liquor men on the hotel porch. One Mr. Weeks of Baltimore in a public speech backed by Dr. Derrickson of Berlin, Md., tried earnestly to show our people the beauties of the license system, the large revenue it paid the State and the United States, and that with its destruction would follow the annihilation of our business interests, the closing of our public schools and charitable institutions. The Dr. told us of the utter failure of the local option law in Worcester county, Md., and the repeal of the law by an overwhelming majority, but failed to enlighten us as to why the town of Bishopsville in that county and within sight of the smoke from his chimney, at an election held during the present week, gave a rousing majority for prohibition. Four weeks of earnest toil by our citizens, assisted by Rev. Robert Todd, Rev. John A. B. Wilson, Messrs. Warner and Schneider, of New Jersey, Captain Sturdtevant, Revs. A. S. Mowbray and A. D. Davis, so aroused our people against the iniquitous license system, that the opposition speeches of the General and the Dr. fell like water on a wild fowl's back. Our streets were thronged until eleven o'clock at night with men, women and children, wild with excitement and hoarse from cheering the champions of the temperance cause. They bivouacked at midnight only to open the Waterloo of the liquor license system on the following morning. That morning, April 24, dawned on Chincoteague calm and clear. With the rising of the sun commenced the moving of the temperance columns. Men, women and children took their places in the line of battle and the fight went on. All day long the ladies crowded the vicinity of the polls, cheering the voters and pinning bouquets to the lapels of their coats. They provided a banquet near by and dined, free, five hundred persons white and colored. -- "The colored troops fought bravely." -- Under the leadership of the Rev. Mr. Cole of the Delaware Conference they assembled at their church, and at nine o'clock marched in solid column to the polls, and notwithstanding the boast of the liquor men that they would buy them all up, they cast their solid vote against the greatest enemy of their race; six colored votes only being cast against the temperance ticket. Music and song and the shouts of he victors rent the air as they rolled up the temperance majority. Many were influenced to vote right by the smiles and earnest pleadings of our ladies. The eyes of the "toilers of the sea" filled with tears as mothers clung to wayward boys and entreated them to cast their ballots against the enemy of God and home. -- The going down of the sun witnessed the termination of the conflict, and the complete rout of the opposing forces. Two hundred and sixty-four votes against, and only thirty-eight for license. The evening closed with a triumphant march of the victors through the principal street, keeping steps to the tunes of their battle songs.
To the Public.
Moral -- AlcoholInfrastructure -- Public - Government : Taxation
We, the liquor dealers of Lee district, having been charged with the intention of paying our license taxes in coupons, hereby pledge ourselves to pay our taxes in lawful money and to discourage the use of coupons for any purpose. -- P. T. Parker, T. W. Parker, W. C. West, A. H. Drummond, Duffield Savage, Nat. Chandler, Lum Barnes, Walter Scott, Mears & James, Geo. F. Parker & Co., Wm. C. Hall.
Letters From the People.
Moral -- Alcohol
EDITOR ENTERPRISE: -- I have carefully read the articles which have appeared in your valuable paper, as well as other papers, on the subject of Local Option, and it seems to me that most writers on the subject have used too much verbiage in getting at the subject. The Legislature of Virginia has given to voters of the districts and counties of the State, the privilege of deciding whether or not the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be granted. Now, it seems to me the main issue involved is simply a question of fact. If the liquor traffic of the county of Accomac is a blessing, if it makes honest citizens, kind husbands and loving fathers, if it leads to an honest observance of the Christian Sabbath, if it leads to morality, manhood and intelligence, it if discourages crime, vice, pauperism and profanity, then there are no two positions for the voters to take on the question. If the liquor traffic is a blessing, every patriotic Virginian, every man who loves his country, owes it to his citizenship and his own sense of honor, to stand by that traffic, talk for it, work for it, vote for it, if he is a praying man pray for it, if he is a preacher he is not doing his duty if he will not preach for it.
But if the reverse is true, if the liquor traffic of this county makes drunkards, cruel husbands, and unkind fathers, if it breaks women's hearts and degrades children, if it entices our boys and young men to become drunkards, if it helps to fill our penitentiaries and almshouses, our asylums and our jails, if it stimulates riot and fighting in our towns, if it encourages impurity at the ballot box, if it is an enemy to good government; if an enemy of law and order and civilization, then can we as voters give a single reason under Heaven, why we as honest voters and honest men can vote for and entertain the traffic with such a record -- especially those of us who have boys and girls who in a few years will take our places in the world?
A VOTER.
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Moral -- Alcohol
MR. EDITOR. -- In your issue of the 17th was an article signed "Citizen," which was intended, I presume, to help your readers to decide on which side they will cast their ballots in the coming contest. He would have us believe that "there will be more liquor used by having prohibition." If that is the case, why are the liquor dealers in Baltimore so ready to fill to overflowing the anti-local option treasury? Why is it that they are willing to incur that expense if they can sell to the liquor dealers more whiskey, and thereby of course be benefitted if local option prevails? None the less strange is his effort to show that "Prohibition Maine has more criminals pro rata than Non-Prohibition Virginia." According to the U. S. census report, for 1880, Maine has 1 prisoner to every 1,590 inhabitants, while Virginia has 1 to every 973 inhabitants. Maine, in fact, has less prisoners with one exception, than any other state of equal population, and in 1884, after 30 year's trial, Maine shows her appreciation of the Prohibition law by a majority of 47,000. "Citizen" would have us believe it is a failure and won't work, while the leading statesmen and business men of Maine are testifying to the beneficial results of prohibition in that state. Consider these facts and ask yourselves if "Citizen" or they are worthy to be believed. For reply to his assertion that prohibition does not prohibit, a few instances out of hundreds are cited, based upon indisputable testimony, where local option laws do prohibit it to a great extent. The city of Vineland, N. J., with a population of 10,000, by the aid of local option is without a grogshop, her police force consists of one constable, and he acts as overseer of the poor, and it only costs $75 a year to support the poor. The towns of Greeley, Colorado, and Bavaria, Illinois, can show about the same record by the blessing of local option laws.
One hundred and twelve counties in the state of Georgia have gone for local option, and the testimony from all over the state is to the effect, that every material interest has advanced since prohibition has gone into effect. The News, of Savannah, Ga. says "There is not a town or county in Georgia which has tried it, that does not report increased prosperity as the result of closing the saloons. In Hamilton county, Ga., where they used to pay from $1 to $1.50 the assessment now is 50 cents."
If prohibition will do so much good in other states, why not in Virginia? If it decreases taxes in other places, why not in Virginia?
Equally fallacious is the effort of "Citizen" to show from the auditor's report, "that an increase of taxes will be the result, on account of the loss of the revenue derived from the liquor license, and that thereby the public schools must suffer." A sufficient answer to "Citizen" on this point is, that the auditor's report shows the public schools are provided for from the capitation, and property, and railroad taxes. Again, "Citizen" tried to show "that the State is liable for the entire interest on the Riddleberger settlement," when only a small percentage of State indebtedness has been funded under the Riddleberger Bill. If the State Treasury was in such a depleted condition, why did the authorities buy up several hundred thousand dollars of State bonds last year? No, if every city and county in Virginia were to pass prohibitory laws at once, (which isn't probable,) there would be no necessity to increase taxes. If you will examine the Richmond Dispatch of April 7th, it says, "There was in the Treasury yesterday, $336,000, and this would be ample to meet current demands, and furnish the required amount for the purchase of new 3s,xxx.
The net amount received for liquor license in 1885 was $315,166, and a considerable part of this was paid in coupons, so you see we would still have a balance after deducting the liquor license.
The liquor dealers say to the voters, you vote down local option and we will pay your taxes. Now, let us see how he does it. The people of Virginia spend over $13,000,000 yearly in the liquor traffic and the State receives a little over $300,000 for liquor license. Now, the writer of this does not profess to be an extra mathematician, but he does not see how he would ever be able to figure out a profit for the State of Virginia out of such a problem. It can be seen though, how easily the tax question, for which the liquor dealers profess so much concern, could be solved, if the amount now spent annually to continue the traffic in liquor and debauch the people could be emptied into our treasury. Is it not truly saving at the spigot and losing at the bunghole to pay $13,000,000 to save $300,000? In conclusion, Mr. Editor, I appeal to the voters to say what they think of the liquor dealers posing, as many of them do, as the champions of law and order. -- What causes the desecration of the Sabbath? Why are there so many blighted homes in our land? Why so many wives mourning for their husbands? Why so many parents weeping for their debauched children? Why so many children in filth and rags? Why so many broken hearted mothers? Is there but one answer, and does it not come to us in tones of thunder? -- the liquor traffic more than all of her evils combined. It is not my desire in this article to wound the feelings of those engaged in this traffic, but it is my earnest desire and prayers to my God, that they may see the error of their ways and join hands with us in removing the curse. If they would do so, and engage instead in some business upon which God's blessings could be asked, I venture the prophesy that the material interests of Virginia would prosper as they have never done before.
ANOTHER CITIZEN.